One of the features of systemd are timers. This recipie shows how to run two tasks (first and second) every minute with dependencies between both.

• Create a /etc/systemd/system/mytimer.timer file with the following content

[Unit]
Description=run my timer tasks every minute and after reboot

[Timer]
OnBootSec=5min
OnCalendar=*:0/1
Unit=mytimer.target

[Install]
WantedBy=basic.target

• Create a /etc/systemd/system/mytimer.target file with the following content:

[Unit]
Description=Mytimer
StopWhenUnneeded=yes

• Create a first.service (it will be called before second.service) in /etc/systemd/system/first.service

[Unit]
Description=First Service

[Service]
ExecStart=/root/first.sh
Type=oneshot

[Install]
WantedBy=mytimer.target

• Create a second.service (it will be called after first.service) in /etc/systemd/system/second.service

[Unit]
Description=Second Service
Requires=first.service
After=first.service

[Service]
ExecStart=/root/second.sh
Type=oneshot

[Install]
WantedBy=mytimer.target

• First.sh

#!/bin/sh
sleep 5
echo "pretest" >> /root/systemdcron.log
echo "First" >> /root/systemdcron.log
date >> /root/systemdcron.log
echo "posttest" >> /root/systemdcron.log

• Second.sh

#!/bin/sh
echo "Second" >> /root/systemdcron.log

• Enable all the stuff

systemctl enable mytimer.timer
systemctl enable first.service
systemctl enable second.service

• Check the logs:

cat /root/systemdcron.log
pretest
First
Mon Aug 18 17:01:05 CEST 2014
posttest
Second

Bonus tip 🔗

If the first script fails, the second isn’t called.